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Sunday, 25 May 2014

Training the extensors is a vital component of strong,
injury proof hands. By training the extensors you balance out your grip
strength, which helps to keep the hand and wrist stable, helping to prevent
injury. Training the extensors can also help to maximise your grip strength
training, by increasing the size and strength on surrounding and related
muscles in the forearm. This is a basic guide to at home minimalist extensor
training to accompany basic grip training.

Finger tip press ups

This is the staple of most extensor training. Holding the
hand in an isometric position uses both sides of the hand, allowing us to get
in some extensor training. Finger tip push ups also allow us to put pressure
though our fingers in a progressive manner to slowly build the bone and
connective tissue of the fingers. I have currently built up to 3 sets of 3 one
arm fingertip push ups, but this was by no means easy. At one stage I was doing
sets of 10 regular fingertip push ups, but after breaking my wrist (parkour injury)
and not training fingertips for a long time I was very weak in the fingers. I
had to start my training from very simple kneeling press ups. This took several
months until the movement just clicked (figuratively, not literally) and I
started to make progress. Aim for 3-5 sets of 5-10 reps before moving on

From there I extended my kneeling press up by locking my
body straight from thigh to back (squeeze the butt). This made the movement
more difficult, with more weight going through the fingers. Again aim for 3-5
sets of 5-10 reps before moving on.

Keep your butt squeezed

Regular fingertip push ups were my next step. Since this
is quite a big jump, I suggest doing isometric holds at the top and bottom of
the push up, and then building up to actually doing press ups on the finger
tips.

Keep your back flat

Once I could do 5-10 finger tip press ups per set I used
press up progressions (un-even and archer) from the convict conditioning book
to work towards the one arm fingertip press up. Again the jump to full one arm
finger tip push ups is big so I used isometric holds (5 seconds) at the top and
bottom, then negatives before I build up to the full press up. Also when
training these for the first time, keep your other arm close by to spot
yourself in case your fingers fail, safety first. I now train these once per
week, often at night while I’m cooking dinner. I suggest either training them
before grip training, or on a separate day, not after grip training as you may
risk fault in your fingers.

Other finger tip options

All sorts of body weight movements can be trained on the
finger tips such as frog stands, elbow levers, handstand push ups, L-sits etc.
Personally I don’t currently train any of these but they are worth doing.

Rubber band extensions

This is the second basic stable of extensor training. I
use the bands from iron mind which I bought along with some grippers and other
items. I like these bands since there are several different strengths to use
and work up to. If you can’t or don’t want to buy any, just look for thick
rubber bands, then start to double them up. I use my bands 1-2 times per week,
working the weakest bands first building up to the strongest, doing sets of
10-12 of each.

Rice buckets

Rice buckets can be used for all kinds of grip, hand and
wrist training. I don’t personally use one but they do look like they would be
helpful. Check them out here on rosstraining.com.

Isometric hold and lift

This is another option I don’t personally use but I’ll
mention it here. Take a large jar or similar container, half fill with
rocks/sand, put your hand in the neck of the jar, open your hand to a finger
tip push up position, this should lock your hand inside the jar. Then do
several lifts with your hand locked in this position.

That should be more than enough for you to start training
your extensors and injury proofing your hands.

Saturday, 24 May 2014

I was going to write a post on training with my hangboard/ mini campus board. However as I thought about it I realised I would
probably be doing people a disservice by not first discussing some basic grip
strength before taking on something much harder (campus boarding). So this
article is my take on some very simple at home grip training. There are many
facets of grip training which you can read about on ironmind.com (great
explanation of the elements of grip here), however what I suggest here is very
simple, and requires very little equipment to take you a long way into grip
training. I used the convict conditioning 2 book to train up to the one arm
towel hang, and much of what I present here is in the book (as well as
elsewhere on the internet for free). I have tried not to give away much of the
CC2 book as the author has put a great deal of work into the book and it would
be unethical for me to present it here for free. I will however lay out some
basic training ideas to help you build an excellent base of grip strength. If
you are struggling to reach much higher levels (one arm towel hang) I suggest
investing in the CC2 book.

Why train the grip?

So many authors have written on this topic so it’s not
necessary for me to repeat it all here. The short version is that a strong grip
will make both training and lifting easier. If grip is lacking it can limit
your upper body pressing and pulling, if your grip is strong you can squeeze
harder and radiate more power though the body (Pavel Tsatsouline) etc. That,
and grip training is just fun.

Basic hangs

I believe a one minute bar hang is a good indicator of a
reasonable level of grip strength and from here you can try some hang boarding,
rope or towel hangs etc. If you are unable to do a vertical bar hang from a
pull up bar (or other high bar) then horizontal hangs is a good place to start.
Using either rings or a low bar, hang under the bar with your body held rigid
(tight abs, back and butt). Keep the shoulders held back and tight (left hand
photos), not soft and high (right hand photos). You could do some ‘shrugs’
between the two positions, but I suggest focusing on keeping the shoulders
back. Aim for 2-3 sets of 30 seconds to 1 minute holds before moving on to
vertical hangs.

Eyes closed because its raining.

All the same rules (suggestions) apply for the vertical
hang, shoulders tight, aim for 2-3 sets of 1 minute hangs. From there you could
add time, aiming for a 2 or even 3 minute hang, or move onto more difficult
hangs.

Squeeze the butt, point the toes, build good movement habits

Some options for incorporating this kind of hang training
is to add these hangs to the end of a pulling training session, or on their own
as a mini workout during the week. Personally I find that the morning is not a
good time for training the grip, not sure why but I always feel much weaker in
the morning. Although that may not be the case for you.Another good option is to do your max pull
ups (or rows) then continue to hang for as long as possible.

While you’re hanging

One good piece of added training while you are hanging is
to do scap pulls (see Ido Portal). I haven’t been trained by Ido Portal but I
believe these are done by pulling the scapular back and down, causing the chest
to rise. I suspect these would carry over well to training the front lever.

Higher levels of grip training

Once you have a solid vertical hang you could move onto
more difficult versions of hangs. One arm hangs and eventually one arm towel
hangs are an excellent step in training both the grip and solid shoulder
positions (keep the shoulder packed tight). A good exercise to do is to hang
from both hands, release one and swing out, then retake your grip and let go
with the other hand to swing out to the other side. Thing could be combined
with shrugging the shoulders or pull ups.

Keep that shoulder tight

Other options are to use two towels for hangs, pull ups
and hanging core work. I used to use these like a drop set after a harder
version of hangs. I would take two towels and knock out some hanging leg lifts
(credit to www.rosstraining.com for the idea).

The same can be done on a short length of rope. The rope
I use here cost about $5NZ per metre, I bought 3 metres and gave a metre to
each of my friends who train at home.

Fat bars

Fat bars (2-3 inches) are another excellent option for
grip training. I have a fat barbell and dumbbells which currently live at a
friend’s house, but you can turn your pull up bar into a fat bar by wrapping it
in a towel.

Two small towels wrapped around the bar

Personally I don’t often use these grip training
approaches for pull ups since I am putting most of my energy into training for
the one arm chin up. However if max pulling strength is not your primary goal
adding these into for regular pull up workouts could work very well.

Other grip training options

There are countless other options for training the grip
such as crush grippers, pinch training, block weights, ripping cards/phone
books, sandbags etc. I have tried to outline the simplest options using minimal equipment
to build your base before trying out different versions of grip training.

Training the extensors

Training the finger extensors (opening your hand) is
important for building max wrist strength, stability and for injury prevention.
I’ll cover these more thoroughly in my next post, but just quickly here, finger
tip push ups, rubber band extensions, reverse curls, and rice buckets are all
good options. Full article here.

Sunday, 18 May 2014

I’ve seen lots of articles and videos on building parallettes,
mostly out of pvc pipe. These all look pretty good, but pvc pipe and fittings
are not that cheap in NZ. So when I had some leftover dowel from my stall bars
I decided to make some wooden parallettes. Since this is the first set I have
built I decided to build slightly smaller, shorter bars and I will likely build
higher bars later.

I used off cuts of 20mm plywood from work and 400mm long,
32mm dowels for the bars. The plywood is 200mm high, and 240mm wide. Very
simple to build and screw together. These parallettes will work well all kinds
of gymnastic movements and will help me build towards a full deficit handstand
push up. My next set of bars will be 400mm, possibly 450mm high so that I can
get a full deficit on the handstand, this will likely be as high as I will ever
need the bars.

Sunday, 11 May 2014

Hanging from the top, low leg raise (mush harder an stall bars than on a pull up bar.

Quite a while ago I saw some of Ido Portal’s videos with
those old school wooden bars on the walls of his gym and I thought “they look
cool, I bet I could build some, but I have no idea what they’re for”. Then Ido
put out two videos using the bars known as stall bars, or Swedish bars, one
video showed a front support (like a front lever) and the other showed a back support (like a back lever). So now I knew something I could use these bars
for, but it was a lot of wood (and money) to lay out so I never got serious
about building some.

Recently I bought the gymnastics bodies, foundation one course,
which uses stall bars quite frequently (I make nothing off that link). While they are not a necessity, it
starts to get difficult to work around things without the stall bars and eventually
I would need to set up something like a ladder to use instead. So I bit the
bullet and built myself a set.

As always I looked around as much as I could to get an idea
of how most people build them, and common issues that arise before I jumped in
and built mine. First step was to decide on the measurements. Most commercial
units are 3 foot wide (900mm), but my rafters are 800mm apart so my unit had to
be 800mm wide. As far as I could tell most bars were set 150mm apart, and the
top bar is offset by about 120mm. I used 32mm pine dowels (pine was all that
was available to me), this seems to work quite well as any thicker and the grip
would fail first, meaning any gymnastics training would be sub optimal. The dowels
were the most expensive part costing about $160NZ total. As far as I can tell
the way I have set my bars up will work very well, possibly I won’t use all of
the bars but I’m not familiar enough with gymnastics training to know. If in
the future I have any issues I’ll update this post.

So to maximise space I cut the sides to fit floor-to-ceiling
(approximately 2200mm), then laid out the sides which would be drilled to fit
the bars. The wood I used is 140mm wide and 20mm thick. I used this because it
was cheap and available (about $8NZ per metre). I used wood glue to glue two
boards together for each side, as well as two shorter pieces for the top. I
then drilled these boards for the dowels. Note: Always drill from the side you
will see as the holes on that side look good and not blown out which can happen
on the other side. These boards (drilled) were then glued to the outer boards
(not drilled). I put a small amount of glue into each hole before I put the
dowel in. It was tricky to get both sides together so call a friend if you can.
I then added the top, bottom and middle braces, threw some screws in and waited
for it to dry. The unit is screwed into studs behind the plywood but I might
add some small brackets to the outside just to be safe.

Undrilled sides, finished drilling, one side glued

Top, bottom and middle braces

All finished I’m quite happy, it looks pretty good for
something I built and feels very solid.

Sunday, 4 May 2014

I completed the first New Zealand Tough Mudder last Sunday (27/4/14)
and had an absolute blast. I felt like the distance (18km) was set just right,
such that the course was long and hard but still do able. The obstacles were a
lot of fun; I was particularly impressed with the Berlin walls, Everest, and
the walk the plank. All the mud was excellent and over all I really enjoyed the
course and obstacles. I would have liked to see monkey bars, or hanging rings
on the course but clearly this took a lot of money to set up and the event is
in its infancy in New Zealand so I’m sure everything will scale up next year. I
had such a great time; I plan on running both days next year.

That’s all I really want to write on the event itself, a
friend of mine shot a short video which you can see here. In the second half of
this post I want to lay out some strengths and skills which I think were
important in this Tough Mudder. I know there are countless training plans,
break downs and obstacle tutorials on the internet, I haven’t looked at many of
them; this is just the way I saw things going down and how my run went so that
you can apply this to your own training.

A friend and I before and after Tough Mudder. Photo credit to Francis Wheeler.

Running

This is a long run over rough terrain, so (in my opinion)
training some long distance running is key. Personally I built up to 8km
training runs on the road, ideally I would have liked to build up to 10-12km. I
know there are camps who say you can run long distance by only training short
distance but I feel like the legs need volume; you need to feel long distance
and know how you respond. I’m not suggesting 3-5 times per week running a 10k,
but I think running 5-10k once per week is helpful (for more of my thoughts on
running, and training for a half marathon see this old post here). Even better
training might be to do a lot of your running off road to get used to the rough
terrain of the course. I do all my running in vibram five fingers so I have
strong feet and ankles, I believe this helped a lot on the course. Also I think
the barefoot running style of feet landing under the body helps on wet slippery
ground.

Climb ups

I felt like this was the most important skill/strength on
the course, muscle ups weren’t necessary but climb ups were. Almost every time
you needed to get up and out of a mud pit you needed to do a climb up, not to
mention the Berlin walls and blades of glory. There was always people around to
help (that’s the point of the event), but I find being pulled over or out of
something uncomfortable (being dragged across your chest and belly). I found it
easier to pull myself out, or have someone boost me from underneath. Building strong
push ups would help, dips would be even better, but the best thing I can
suggest is look up ‘climb ups’ on YouTube and have a go, or find a parkour practitioner
you can teach you. You could even train this by climbing out of a ground level
pool repeatedly.

Jumping

Personally I tried not to jump too often during the race, as
I said I was running in five fingers which I find put more pressure on the
calves, I just wanted to play it safe and not add the additional stress of
jumping. That said if you feel confident learning and training some basic
parkour precision jumps would go a long way. Not needed for any obstacles, but
could be helpful jumping over water hazards on the course.

Leg strength/Endurance

This one’s important, particularly with the Berlin walls and
Everest falling towards the end of the course. It helps a lot to have
additional leg strength that you are able to call on after running 16k (or more)
to get you up and over obstacles. High rep swings and high rep squats might
help this, I’ve been doing 100kg back squats for 20, don’t know if this helps
directly but it is mental training as much as it is physical.

Crawling

A few obstacles required that you crawl hands and knees, or
if you’re bigger on your belly. This might be helpful to train for in order to
do fast. Trust me, you don’t want to muck around in the electric eel.

Upper body pulling and grip

I didn’t find this to be tested much on this course but
looking over possible obstacles, many call on a strong upper body and grip.
Pull ups, climbing, and all manner of grip training (particularly hanging)
would be important if your event includes any of these obstacles.

Finally some advice for after the event, moving around in a
hot pool made me feel in top shape for work the next day, however I had a hard
karate class on the next Wednesday which I felt fine heading into, but my legs
were just not ready for it. They failed big time and it was all I could do not to
fall over, so take it easy after the event.